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What does it mean to lose a part of you? A hand, an arm, a leg: what does it mean to lose it?

Am I less of myself if I lose my hand? Do I ascribe ownership of my hand, in which case I retain my identity in its totality and feel simply as if I’ve lost a house or a job, things important to me but not in essence, “me”? Or does my hand help define me, does it make me, is it essential to my being? Do I diminish as a human being because I have lost a limb, a part of me?

And what if I lose my hand? Do I move on? Or does the mark of that kind of loss always wound me, affect me, inflict pain upon my very personhood? Am I less disfigured, am I less damaged compared to if I lose my leg, or both legs? Or am I broken just the same?

I was affected by our forum today. Our teachers (kind souls that they are) thought that it would help us all understand our lectures about the musculoskeletal system better if we would meet a patient, not far from our age, who lost an arm to an accident. We would understand what disability, impairment, and handicap mean, vicariously through our patient, and hopefully, first hand in the emotions, sympathy, and desire to ease suffering that we would all feel in the face of a suffering patient.

Jose (not his real name) is 20 years old, and he lost his arm last October when he fell from the 15^th floor of a building he was helping construct in

Makati.

The very idea of someone falling from a height that extreme leaves me out of breath. Jose came to our class with both legs bandaged until right below his knees, and the sleeve of his dark shirt just barely covered the stump that he would self-consciously try to keep out of our sight. He had an above-the-elbow amputation of his left arm about three months ago, and his arm was so apparent in its absence that his body seemed to glare at me in its asymmetry. Apart from his bandages and his absent arm, he looked surprisingly normal and healthy. His face, the rest of his body, escaped disfigurement, and he was introduced by our teacher as “ang gwapo naming pasyenteng si Jose”, and nobody disagreed. Jose is shy, he came from Bicol, and he works as a construction worker to help with his family who lives back home in the province.

Our professor asked Jose to introduce himself and to tell us what had happened to him. He shyly shrugged; he simply wanted to be asked questions instead of narrating his story. Our professor began by asking him his name. He said his name was Jose. He spoke with the slight lilt and rhythm of the people from his province, and he would avert his eyes from us whenever he would speak. When he was asked his age and he answered that he was only 20 years old there was a noticeable flutter in the room, for he was so young. When disease strikes down the old we mourn yet understand and accept, but when disability is seen in the young we always wonder why this can happen. Then he told us his story, and in an even, unaffected voice he shared with us what had happened to him.

He told us about his accident, how he fell, and how he spent one month in Makati Med, recovering, thankfully at the expense of the construction company he worked for. He told us that he had moved to the Rehab Ward of PGH to heal and regain use of his limbs, and how he has stayed there for 3 months already. He told us that he could no longer take a bath by himself, how he would need others to scoop water for him, because he could not reach for the pail. When he told us that he had no problems eating by himself, I could detect a very slight hint of pride in his voice for his achievement. He also told us that he had his brother with him, that he was being cared for by his family while he was in PGH.

We then had a chance to ask him questions, and I think, a chance to try to connect with the person behind the accident, the person with the amputated arm. He seemed normal, Jose, and I tried to imagine him laughing, or at least smiling, and it wasn’t very difficult to do. I worked up the courage to raise my hand and ask him a question. I asked him, “Ano ang naramdaman mo nung naintindihan mong wala ka nang kamay?” because I sincerely wanted to know how it feels like to lose a part of me. He replied quickly, “Nainis ako.” He then told us that because he was so shook up and confused with what happened, he had to ask his parents who came to visit him whether he really was born without a left arm. I was confused by his answer, and then I gleaned understanding. I took this to mean that the idea of losing an arm was so impossible that unless he was born without one, his arm could not be taken away from him. And I realize that it is so easy for us to think that about so many things in our life: that it is so impossible to lose our arm, our leg, our families, our loved ones, our lives. I think for Jose and for many of us, the idea of being torn apart from the things that have defined our very being and our identities is utterly impossible, yet the misfortune that happened to Jose tells us that it is very possible to lose them, and very abruptly.

I then felt that I needed to ask more, and I aked him through our teacher, “Ano ang mga pangarap mo?” It took him longer to answer that question. He answered “wala na”, and then corrected himself, “Gusto ko dating maging sundalo.” I felt uncomfortable when he answered this, for I knew that he was aware of how difficult his dream had become.

I needed to ask him about his dreams because in my experience, dreams define us. They tell us what kind of person we become, and even the act of dreaming is empowering. It is when you tell the universe, “I dream this” with the intention of claiming it in the future, of helping create that future where that dream is possible. I was afraid that this experience would not simply tear him away from something truly important to him, but it might rob him as well of his dreams. I felt that to be robbed of dreams is to be left truly impoverished.

Jose was slumped in his wheelchair when we thanked him for spending time with us. I wish that I could write that he looked at us with determined eyes that said, ‘I will grow bigger than my disability,’ but that was not how our time with him ended. It pained me to see him burdened by this, yet I know that I do not understand the depths of his hurt and confusion. I have every hope though that he will rise from this experience and become who he is meant to be. I know well enough, though, not to try to hasten the process of healing. Something in me, however, refuses to believe that the shy 20 year old from Bicol will be defeated by his disability.

Now, less than 2 hours later, I try to write down my thoughts about our experience with Jose. I do not understand why I am so affected by the loss of another. Part of me believes that we deserve no such pain, no such loss, and yet there is so much pain and loss in the world. Another part of me feels that suffering is without value, it is unjust most of the time, it is unfair. As I reflect on this my thoughts turn inward, to myself and to my experience of suffering. I am a happy person and I know true joy is in my life, and I feel blessed beyond my expectations. My family, my loved ones, my friends, my vocation: for these alone I am so grateful. Yet the road to happiness and joy in my life was not without pain and suffering. In that way I feel strangely respectful of pain, I appreciate it. I do not, however, seek it. I do not want it in my life, or in others’, nor do I cherish it. In fact when it is here all I want is to rid myself of it. However unwelcome a visitor it is in my abode, it is also without doubt a peculiar presence through which my comprehension of the world becomes deeper. I do not know what to make of it, I doubt if I will ever have the wisdom to grasp its meaning, yet it is here in this world.

What does it mean to lose a part of you? I do not know what meaning to ascribe to loss. I do know that it happens, and happen it will, again and again. Some of us feel the weighty presence of loss by losing a part of us: a leg, a foot, or like Jojo, a left arm. Others feel the profound presence of loss deep in their hearts, where no one sees the disfigurement it has caused, the disability it has wrought. But again and again it will come, like a strange visitor who does not know that its presence hurts and maims. What are we to do then, in the face of loss? What are we to do when we hurt?

We try to heal. As a future doctor I realize that the act of healing is a universal gift, something that we are all born with, something that we have the power to give, and receive. We try to heal what we have lost, we try to ease suffering wherever we can. We heal those who are hurt; we try to heal ourselves when we have lost. We heal our hearts when it has been broken, we heal our wounds when our bodies have weakened. We heal whenever we can.

So am I less of myself when I lose a part of me? Maybe. But inside of us is a way to grow bigger than our loss. Inside all of us is the power to heal.

January 30, 2006

6:51 pm

This entry was posted on Monday, January 30th, 2006 at 7:15 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.